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    Argentinian prosecutor found dead

    This sounds kind of big http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-30877296

    Lot of questions anyway.

    #2
    Argentinian prosecutor found dead

    Very much hope they are answered.

    The victims deserve to know who was behind that attack, and who has obscured the facts for so many years.

    I'd be particularly interested in Sam's take on this.

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      #3
      Argentinian prosecutor found dead

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        #4
        Argentinian prosecutor found dead

        I have to say that, while I fully sympathise with the sentiment here, and am extremely troubled by this whole story, having someone whose twitter profile picture involves him waving an Israeli flag next to a Charlie Hebdo poster is not helping me. Sorry if he's a friend ursus, but, y'know, I'm not sure I want to be on his side. (This, clearly is my problem not his)

        Apropos of nothing in particular, Israel locked up a Palestinian cartoonist for 5 months yesterday. Satire.

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          #5
          Argentinian prosecutor found dead

          New York Times , and Guardian articles.

          Apparently Nisman had discovered a deal not to investigate Iranian involvement in the attack in exchange for oil.

          Interesting hashtags are #nisman and #cfkasesina
          I saw the Argentinian film Wild Tales recently. Brilliant and very funny portmanteau film on violence and revenge. I'd heartily recommend it to anyone trying to understand the context.

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            #6
            Argentinian prosecutor found dead

            Nominated for an Oscar as well.

            Ad hoc, I was noting the visibility of the Twitter campaign, which is expected to be followed by large demonstrations in BA. I didn't even know that the avatar would copy (he isn't someone I follow).

            The more news comes out about this, the worse it looks for Kirchner's government. I very much hope that all of the evidence Nisman collected is in a safe place.

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              #7
              Argentinian prosecutor found dead

              I wouldn't bet on that last point, Mr Bear.

              Honestly, I can't offer much of a 'take' on this right now (it's 2:30am and frankly, I've had a few), except to say that for many, many people, it fucking stinks. Protest-wise, the bus I took down to San Telmo for a few pints on Monday night had to be re-routed, though that sounds more dramatic than it might given that San Telmo is only a few blocks away from the main square the protests were held in, and said bus would normally have gone right though it.

              I honestly can't offer much more of any intelligence, right now. There are people here talking about how maybe the government had him bumped off before he could introduce anything against them, which would be unbelievable if this wasn't... well, Argentina. There are people saying the Iranian government had him taken out. There are people saying the pressure got too much for him (he was apparently found with a gun nearby, a single shell casing, and the door of his flat locked from the inside, but reports are mixed as to where the wound came from and whether the service door of the flat was open).

              On the one hand, OTF needs to pay more attention to Argentina. On the other, OTF needs an Argentine correspondent who pays a bit more attention to Real World Goings-On rather than football. But hey, writing solely about football I've got more Twitter followers than any other English-speaking Twitter account in Argentina, and that ought to tell you where the rest of the world's priorities lie in this respect... (That last bit might sound slightly arrogant, to the uninitiated. It's intended in entirely the opposite sense.)

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                #8
                Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                ad hoc wrote: I have to say that, while I fully sympathise with the sentiment here, and am extremely troubled by this whole story, having someone whose twitter profile picture involves him waving an Israeli flag next to a Charlie Hebdo poster is not helping me.
                A quick one on this; Argentina has a large Jewish population (the sixth largest in the world outside Israel), and many of them are... shall we say, Israel-sympathetic, even at the same time as being relatively liberal in terms of how many of us liberal Europeans would conceive the term. (I'd like to mention at this point that my girlfriend, who belongs to said ArgieJew population, is very much not among said Zionists.) So to many, the Israeli flag/Charlie Hebdo thing isn't as much of a dichotomy as you would see it, ad hoc.

                All that being said, the guy's profile says he's a Zionist, so fuck him, frankly.

                Really and truly, though, this goes an awful lot deeper than what he or anyone else feels or says about this. The attack on the Israeli embassy in 1992 was followed up in 1994 by the bombing of the Argentine Jewish Association in 1994. The 'Israelite' in the name of that institution is really just a name; every Jewish person living in Argentina is represented by that association (my girlfriend's grandad and mum died last year; she went to AMIA to discuss burial options etc. for both, and leaving that aside, she attends the annual memorial service for the bombing victims every year - and again, she's anything but a Zionist). Together, it's difficult to see these attacks as just something carried out by anti-Semitic factions within Argentina, for example. The suspicion has always been that, in a country that was only 9 years into democracy when the Israeli embassy bombing happened, and which holds one of the world's largest Jewish populations, they were a message from certain factions close to (especially) the Iranian government and related anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic groups (I stress the and there, but want to make it clear that it's not meant to be an and therefore).

                Successive Argentine presidents have refused to do anything about this. Again; this is a young democracy, and frankly (speaking as an outsider, and without wanting to come across as too much like Borges, a writer I love prosaically but hate politically) Argentines still aren't used to it being one. The Kirchners - first Néstor and since 2011 his widow Cristina, who can't stand for re-election this October - have done far more than any other post-democracy presidents for human rights generally. But that doesn't mean the record has been perfect. Remember the post I made a few weeks ago about how the orangutan in BA Zoo has been granted 'non human person' rights, but women still aren't allowed abortions? Well, they're not perfect.

                A couple of years ago the Kirchner government signed an agreement with Iran to investigate/bring people to justice. Predictably, a lot of people saw this as preparing to whitewash certain findings. Now this happens.

                I don't know what to think. I really don't. But I echo two things I said in my previous post: one is that it fucking stinks, and the other is that this kind of thing will continue to happen until (and maybe even long after) people outside Argentina start caring more about Argentine politics than they do about Argentine footballers.

                I said I'd had a bit too much to drink to give my own opinion. Apparently I was mistaken. I hope all this made sense, but if it didn't, blame that on the state of this country, rather than my own gin/wine/fernet intake tonight, yeah? Because you have to drink this much to make any fucking sense of this place, sometimes.

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                  #9
                  Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                  Thanks Sam

                  Just to be clear I am aware of the Jewish population in Argentina and I can only imagine how these two bombings must have been to that community. And I can understand how they (and Jews anywhere really) have a certain attachment towards and hopes for Israel. I have no problems at all with the Star of David appearing on the bottom corner of that Argentinian flag, in making this case, for example (though I might do if I could read what the writing on it says, I suppose)

                  But essentially anyone whose profile picture shows him holding an Israeli flag next to a Charlie Hebdo poster instantly marks him out as a cast iron cunt of the lowest order.

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                    #10
                    Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                    Yes. As I sort of hinted, I wouldn't put it past someone from here to have missed the point slightly in that regard - but his Twitter profile says he's a Zionist, plain and simple, so bollocks to him.

                    I'd help you out with said writing, but I don't know what it says either. Not because I can't understand it, but because it's too small to read even on my fancy new high-resolution laptop.

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                      #11
                      Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                      The idea that the government killed this guy though, seems too impossible to imagine. Is it genuinely possible that they could think they would get away with it? It seems madness. (Obviously whatever any inquiry says people who want to will believe they did anyway).

                      And Iran as the guilty party? Sounds more feasible on one level, but again what do they stand to gain? And they stand to lose a lot.

                      (And I am also sure there are people suggesting that it was Mossad in order to plant blame on Iran and/or Kirchner)

                      But then suicide seems equally unlikely since he was on the brink of testifying.

                      It's baffling really, and it sounds like it's even more baffling from within Argentina

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                        #12
                        Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                        ad hoc wrote: The idea that the government killed this guy though, seems too impossible to imagine. Is it genuinely possible that they could think they would get away with it? It seems madness. (Obviously whatever any inquiry says people who want to will believe they did anyway).
                        This isn't Europe; this is Argentina. I am far from convinced that the government are responsible, but here of all places, it's not as mental as it sounds from a European perspective, either.

                        As for what an inquiry might say - this guy was effectively going to testify in an inquiry! Take everything I've ever said about what Julio Grondona felt he could do in footballing terms (Google stuff, if it helps), and multiply it by something approximating infinity, and you've got the amount of impunity in which Argentine politicians operate. There is no accountability here. Genuinely, none. That's why suggestions that this death might not have happened exactly the way the official story says it did are being entertained.

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                          #13
                          Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                          ad hoc wrote: The idea that the government killed this guy though, seems too impossible to imagine. Is it genuinely possible that they could think they would get away with it? It seems madness. (Obviously whatever any inquiry says people who want to will believe they did anyway).

                          And Iran as the guilty party? Sounds more feasible on one level, but again what do they stand to gain? And they stand to lose a lot.

                          (And I am also sure there are people suggesting that it was Mossad in order to plant blame on Iran and/or Kirchner)

                          But then suicide seems equally unlikely since he was on the brink of testifying.

                          It's baffling really, and it sounds like it's even more baffling from within Argentina
                          If I was a cynic I would think your new-found faith in dodgy governments has something to do with the fact that the attack took place against a Jewish centre. I'm not a cynic though, mind.

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                            #14
                            Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                            You're clearly a cunt though. That's a fucking loathesome accusation to make and you can go and boil your head you piece of dirt.

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                              #15
                              Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                              ad hoc, is anyone suggesting that the Iranians killed Nissman? I hadn't seen that, and agree that it is implausible. 1994, on the other hand, is a rather different story.

                              And I do think that you are underestimating the sheer bloody mindedness of Cristina's government and its supporters. They also are not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed.

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                                #16
                                Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                                ursus arctos wrote: ad hoc, is anyone suggesting that the Iranians killed Nissman? I hadn't seen that, and agree that it is implausible. 1994, on the other hand, is a rather different story.
                                Sam's post above says so

                                And I do think that you are underestimating the sheer bloody mindedness of Cristina's government and its supporters. They also are not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed.
                                Can they really be this thick? I mean that's the most likely explanation, as far as I can see, and...well, I mean I'm used to government incompetence but this would be a new level of idiocy. In a democracy?

                                Obviously if Sam says it's possible (and most of my Argentinian contacts on twitter/fb seem to say the same), then I guess it is.

                                It's like David Kelly to the power of ten.

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                                  #17
                                  Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                                  Yes, they can be, and are.

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                                    #18
                                    Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                                    they didn't even lock the door behind them.

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                                      #19
                                      Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                                      I know less than the rest of you, but I'm with ad hoc here.

                                      It's looks just so stupid and clumsy and obvious for it to be a government hit, particularly as he was going to testify on something that happened long before any of the current government were in power.

                                      Are governments really this stupid, still?

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                                        #20
                                        Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                                        This has been going on for a long time, and Cristina's government has been in the middle of it.

                                        Nisman’s wiretaps allegedly show that the “impunity for oil” negotiations were being conducted by phone through a middleman in Buenos Aires with the main suspect in Iran, Rabbani himself.

                                        “There’s been an alliance with the terrorists,” said Nisman in a 37-minute television interview last Wednesday in which he described how negotiators – whom he said were chosen and directed personally by Fernández – called Rabbani’s go-between in Buenos Aires saying they were coming out of the president’s office with precise instructions regarding the negotiations.

                                        Nisman said he was so shocked when he first heard the wiretaps that he refused to believe his own evidence. He became convinced, he explained, when he heard the conspirators talking about details of the president’s health that only became public a few days after the conversations were recorded.

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                                          #21
                                          Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                                          Kirchner reverses course.

                                          Confronted with a deepening scandal, the president of Argentina abruptly reversed herself on Thursday, saying that the death of a prosecutor investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center was not a suicide as she and other government officials had asserted.

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                                            #22
                                            Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                                            La Lanterne Rouge wrote: I know less than the rest of you, but I'm with ad hoc here.

                                            It's looks just so stupid and clumsy and obvious for it to be a government hit, particularly as he was going to testify on something that happened long before any of the current government were in power.

                                            Are governments really this stupid, still?
                                            To cut a long story short, he was going to testify that the current president had played a part in brushing it under the carpet, having upset Jewish groups here a year or two ago by even sitting down to talk with the Iranians.

                                            TV news this afternoon has been showing CCTV images from Ezeiza (the main international airport) of Nisman being picked up when he arrived back in the country recently. No-one seems to know who the man who picked him up and accompanied him out of the airport was.

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                                              #23
                                              Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                                              The Argentinians are now blaming the murder on "rogue government agents". Oh ho.

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                                                #24
                                                Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                                                Who will rid me of this turbulent lawyer?

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                                                  #25
                                                  Argentinian prosecutor found dead

                                                  The journalist who broke the story on Sunday night/early Monday morning has left Argentina after being informed by 'a contact who's been very reliable for years, and knows his way around the security world' that the government were 'coming for you.' He says he got the feeling that by tweeting about an incident at Nisman's flat so soon after it had happened, he'd messed up someone's plans.

                                                  If you read Spanish, there's an interview with him here, as he met a fellow journalist and friend at the airport before leaving.

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